1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control method executable in a printing system configured to execute printing by transferring printing orders received from order placement location apparatuses, each of which is connected to the printing system via a network, to a plurality of printing location apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent widespread use of a digital camera and improvement of infrastructures of data communication via the Internet, a printing service has been widely used that utilizes a server on the Internet to receive photographic data (image data) and document data and to execute printing at printing apparatuses installed in various printing locations.
A print product of photographic data printed by a large-format inkjet printing apparatus or a print product of document data that is bound into a book is referred to as a “printing article”, which corresponds to a printing order placement method having each printing style.
In addition, if each printing article and information about the printing article such as the number of printing orders thereof and a distribution destination thereof are processed as one piece of information, the printing article and the information including the above-described information are collectively referred to as a “printing order”.
The above-described printing service includes a method intended for use in a small-scale photo store or a convenience store as a printing location, at which a user receives a print product. In addition, the above-described printing service includes a method in which print data is centrally printed by a printing apparatus installed at a plurality of large- or middle-scale printing locations, from which a print product is distributed to the user by a courier.
In the former method in which a user visits a printing location to receive a print product, it is desired that the print data is printed at a printing location as close as possible to a user's residence rather than to level out the load on printing apparatuses installed at each printing location. On the other hand, in the latter method in which print data is centrally printed, it is desired to increase the throughput of the entire system by leveling the load on printing apparatuses installed at each printing location as even as possible. More specifically, in order to most effectively execute printing by the above-described central printing method, it is useful to process all printing orders at one printing location.
However, if all printing orders are processed at one printing location in an actual case, the processing at the printing location may be hindered by power failure, an accident, or a natural disaster. In this case, the distribution of a print product may be delayed or the processing at the printing location may fail or be hindered. Accordingly, it is desired to spread the risk over a plurality of printing locations at mutually sufficiently distant places.
In structuring a system including a plurality of printing locations, it is necessary to distribute printing orders to different printing locations. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-290627 discusses a method for distributing a printing order to a printing location whose load is small by considering the load on each printing location according to a result of detecting the load.
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-31859 discusses a method for transferring a printing order from one printing location to another without applying a load to a server if a printing order has become unprocessible due to a printer failure after the printing orders are distributed.
The above-described conventional method for distributing printing orders considers the processing load of processing printing orders to be distributed. Accordingly, if any printing location has a throughput much higher than that of other printing locations, the printing orders may not be optimally distributed if the printing order distribution sequence does not agree with the throughput status of the printing locations.
Suppose that a printing order of a low processing load and another printing order of a high processing load are placed in this order to printing locations including a printing location A having a low throughput and a printing location B having a high throughput.
In the above-described conventional method, a printing order of a low processing load, which has been placed earlier than the other, is distributed to a printing location whose processing load is low at the time of placement of the printing order. In this case, because the printing locations A and B are not processing any printing order at this time, the loads of the printing locations A and B are considered to be the same load (i.e., “0”). Therefore, the low processing load-printing order is distributed to the printing location B having a high throughput, which is thus considered to be capable of processing the printing order faster than the printing location A.
When a printing order of a high processing load is placed after that, the high-processing load printing order is distributed to the printing location A because the printing location B has already been allocated with the low-processing load printing order. As a result of distributing the printing orders in the above-described manner, the high-processing load printing order is distributed to the printing location A having a low throughput. Accordingly, a great difference between the loads on the printing locations A and B may arise.
Moreover, in the above-described conventional method, if it is necessary to transfer a printing order that has been distributed to one printing location to another printing location because the printing at the printing order transferring source printing location has become disabled due to any failure or malfunction, the printing order is transferred to a previously fixedly set printing location. Accordingly, with the above-described conventional method, if the load on a printing order transferring destination printing location is high or if any failure has occurred when the printing order is transferred, the processing of the transferred printing order may be stagnated.
As described above, in a printing system including a plurality of printing locations, it is desired to execute the operation without an unbalanced operation rate among the printing apparatuses installed at the printing locations or an unbalanced load of processing by an operator.